"Ah! that's bad, that's bad," answered Seckendorf: "no one should have a headache but a boy of sixteen who has been drunk overnight. But what can I do, pretty Bertha; I'm no leech, and am more accustomed to bleeding men than bleeding women?"
"Ay, but Sir Knight, you can send down to the chapel, where one of the monks will be found. They all know something of leechcraft; and if Father George is there, he knows a great deal."
"But it's growing dark," said Seckendorf. "The gates must be shut in ten minutes, and we want all the men we have about the place. Better wait till the Count comes back, and if she should be very bad, I'll tell you what you must do; mull half a pint of Zeller wine; put plenty of spice in, and a spoonful or two of honey. Let her drink that down at one draught,--that will cure her. It is just what cured me the only time I ever had a headache."
"Ay, but what would cure you might kill our lady," replied Bertha, who did not at all approve of the prescription. "I pray you, Herr von Seckendorf, send down one of the men to the good Father. What would you say if this were to turn out a fever after you refused to send for help?"
"A fever!" cried Seckendorf, "what has she done to get a fever? She has neither ridden fifty or sixty miles in a hot sun, nor lain out all night in a damp marsh; nor drunk three or four quarts of wine to heat her blood--Well, if I must send, I must; but mind, I do it with no good will, for I don't like to send any of the men out after gates closing."
Thus saying, he put his head out of the door, calling till the whole building echoed again: "Martin, Martin--Martin, I say;" and then returning to Bertha's side, he continued, "I don't think much of the monks. They can't be such holy men as people say, else they'd keep the wood clear of spirits and devils, and things of that kind. Why one of the men, who was looking out from the turret during the storm last night, vows he saw some kind of apparition just down below the chapel, fencing with the lightning, and playing at pitch and toss with balls of fire. Then all in a minute he vanished away.--Ah! Martin, you must go down to the chapel in the wood, and tell the priest to come up and see the lady Adelaide, who is ill; so let him bring his lancet with him."
"Nonsense," cried Bertha, "she will need no bleeding; you soldiers think of nothing but blood."
The man Martin dropped his bead, and did not at all seem to like the task; but then gave a look through the window to the sky and walked away, grumbling something which was neither heard by the old knight nor the young damsel. Bertha having performed her errand, was then tripping away; but Seckendorf caught her hand, saying, in a honied tone, "Stay a bit, my pretty maid, and chat with me, as you did with young Ferdinand this morning."
"No, indeed," cried Bertha, trying to withdraw her hand; "that was in the free air and sunshine, not in a dark hall--let me go, Sir." But the next moment her eyes fixed upon something at the further end of the long room, and giving a loud scream she started back.
Seckendorf let go her hand, and turned round to look in the same direction, where two doors opened into the opposite sides of the hall. Both apparently were closed, but yet, from the one to the other he distinctly perceived a tall shadowy form, clothed in long garments, stalk slowly across, and disappear. The old man who would willingly have confronted a whole host of mortal enemies, and plunged his horse into a forest of spikes, now stood rooted to the ground, with his teeth chattering and his knees shaking, a thousand-fold more terrified than the young girl beside him. Bertha seized the opportunity to hasten away to her mistress's apartments; and Seckendorf, who called after her in vain, thought the line of her retreat by the door behind them so excellent, that he followed as soon as he could regain strength to go.
Never in Seckendorf's life had he so eagerly desired companionship as when he quitted the hall; but companionship he could not find, of the kind and quality that befitted his rank and station. The old ritter would have felt himself degraded by associating with the common soldiers, or anybody who had not von before his name; but Ferdinand he could not find; his companion, old Karl von Mosbach, had accompanied the Count, with all the other persons of gentle birth who filled the various anomalous offices which then existed in the household of a high nobleman; and not even a crossbow-man, who, as was generally admitted, had a right to sit down to table with a knight, could be discovered by our worthy friend, as he went grumbling through the castle.
"Hundert Schwerin!" he exclaimed; "to think of my seeing the ghost! Santa Maria! who'd have ever fancied it would have come into the hall? It looked to me, mighty like our poor dear lady that's gone, only it had a long beard, and was six foot high. I wonder if our good lord did put her out of the way, as some people think!--What could it want in the hall? Very saucy of an apparition to show itself there, unless it were at meal times, when, poor thing! it might want something to eat and drink. It must be cold and hungry work to go shivering about all night in vaults and passages, and to sneak back to its hiding-hole at daylight. I'd rather stand sentry on the northern'st tower in the middle of January. I wonder if I shall ever be a ghost! I should not like it at all. I'll have this one laid, however, if it costs me five crowns out of my own pocket; for we shan't be safe in our rooms, if it goes on in this way, unless we huddle up five or six together, like young pigs in a sty. Donner! where can that young dog, Ferdinand, be? I won't tell him what I've seen, for he'll only laugh; but I'll call him to talk about the Lady Adelaide; he's very fond of her, and will like to hear about her being ill;" and, raising his voice, with these friendly intentions, he called up the stairs which led to the young gentleman's room,--"Ferdinand! Ferdinand!--I want you, scapegrace!"
"What is it, ritter?" answered the voice of Ferdinand from above; "I'm busy, just now; I'll come in a minute."
"But I want you now," answered Seckendorf, who was determined not to be left longer without society than was necessary;--"Come hither and speak to me, or I will come to you."
Ferdinand said a word or two to some one above, and then came unwillingly down the stairs.
"Ah, wild one!" said the old knight, "what would you have given to be in my place just now? I've had a chat with pretty mistress Bertha, just between light and dark, in the hall."
"Indeed!" answered Ferdinand. "I dare say it was very innocent, Seckendorf; and so was my chat with her on the battlements. But what might she want with you?"
"Why, the Lady Adelaide is very ill," replied Seckendorf.
"Ill!" exclaimed Ferdinand, in a tone of much alarm. "What, the Lady Adelaide! She seemed quite well this morning."
"Ay, but women change like the wind," said Seckendorf; "and she's ill now, however; so I've sent down to the chapel for the priest to come up and say what's to be done for her."
"Why, Father George is in my room now," replied Ferdinand, "giving me good counsel and advice."
"Send him down, then,--send him down, quick," said Seckendorf; "and then come and talk with me: I've a good deal to say."
Ferdinand sped away with a much more rapid step than that which had brought him thither, and returned in a few seconds with the good priest, whose face, as far as Seckendorf could see it, in the increasing darkness, expressed much less alarm than that which the lover's countenance had displayed.
"'Tis nothing,--'tis nothing," he said, after speaking with the old knight for a moment, on the lady's illness; "some trifle that will soon pass. But I will go and see;" and, accompanied by Ferdinand and the old soldier as far as the door of Adelaide's apartments, he went in without ceremony.
While he remained,--and he staid for more than an hour, Ferdinand and Seckendorf continued walking up and down the corridor, and only went beyond it to order the hall and the passages to be lighted. Their conversation was entirely of the Lady Adelaide and her illness; for though, with the invariable garrulity of one who had seen a marvel, Seckendorf more than a dozen times approached the subject of the apparition, ready to pour the whole tale into Ferdinand's ear, notwithstanding all his resolutions to the contrary, the young man was still more occupied with the thoughts of his fair lady's state, than the old knight with the memory of the ghost, and he ever turned back to that topic just when the